Mirror Image
by Laura Schiller
Summary: Set after "Human Nature/Family of Blood". Martha and Tattycoram, though born in different centuries, have a lot more in common than they suspected.


Mirror Image

By Laura Schiller

Crossover: _Little Dorrit/Doctor Who_

Copyright: Charles Dickens and BBC One

Note: This story was inspired by the brilliant acting skills of Freema Ageyman, who plays Tattycoram in the 2009 _Little Dorrit_ miniseries and Martha Jones on _Doctor Who_.

After their ordeal with the Family of Blood in 1913, the Doctor had promised to take his companion somewhere safe. In Martha Jones' opinion, however, the English countryside of 1826 – specifically the dainty white gazebo and flowering gardens of the Meagles family cottage – was just a little too peaceful for her peace of mind. She sighed (or tried to, as her corsetted black gown didn't allow her to breathe very deeply) watching from her shaded chair as the Doctor made himself the life of the party. At least it was a gown and not a uniform; this time he'd had the tact not to disguise her as his servant again, although in an era like this, it would have been the most respectable choice. Instead she'd been introduced as his "cousin", which had raised some eyebrows in regard to their different races, but thankfully the Meagles were too polite to pursue the question further.

"Fascinating, isn't it?" said the Meagles' friend Daniel Doyce, turning the sonic screwdriver around in his hands. "Yet in all the months I travelled with him, the good Doctor refused to explain how it works."

"It's very advanced technology," said the Doctor, carelessly raking a hand throgh his spiky hair. "Ahead of its _time,_ you might say. It shouldn't reach England for oh, at least another fifty thousand years."

"How very droll you are, Doctor!" Pet Meagles giggled, fluttering her fan. She was blonde, blue-eyed and lovely as a rose, and it had not escaped Martha's notice that the Doctor watched her with a wistful look in his dark eyes.

"Indeed," Mr. Meagles agreed. "Being practical people, naturally we don't hold with such fancies, but they're very pleasant to listen to all the same."

Martha glanced down at her brown wrist emerging from its lace cuff, remembered she wasn't wearing a watch, and frowned. _If I hear the phrase 'practical people' one more time … ! _

She caught the Doctor's eye and he winked at her over Mrs. Meagles' bonneted head, probably thinking the exact same thing. She smiled, feeling slightly better. After all, there could be Carrionites, or mutant cannibal scientists, or vengeful solar entities, so it could be worse … couldn't it?

"Tattycoram!" called Mr. Meagles, turning back toward the house. "Tattycoram, where are you?"

Martha, expecting a dog with that name, was a bit rattled to see a young Black woman emerge from the house, carrying a tea tray and glowering at them all with a heat that put the solar entity to shame. She knew that nineteenth-century London was more diverse than they showed it in period films, but the living evidence was rather overwhelming.

"Miss Jones, Doctor, this is Tattycoram. Tattycoram, come and greet our guests, won't you? They're friends of Mr. Doyce, you know, and any friend of Doyce is a friend of ours!"

Tattycoram stopped by the gazebo steps, obviously as surprised to see Martha as Martha was to see her. She lowered her gaze, placed the tea tray on the table, and poured five cups as neatly and silently as possible. She followed the company's directions – "Two sugars, please"; "Just a splash of milk, Tatty dear, no, that's too much" – with her eyes cast down, so demure that Martha began to wonder if that fiery glare had been a figment of her imagination.

Martha murmured a thank-you as she accepted her cup, startling the other girl into meeting her eyes again – the rage behind the shock as clear as before. Tattycoram whirled around, hurrying back into the house, accompanied by laughter from the Meagles family.

"She's a strange creature, isn't she?" said Mr. Meagles off-handedly, without even looking at Martha. "Flies into a temper at the slightest provocation. Count to five-and-twenty, Tattycoram, I tell her, count to five-and-twenty – sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But then, we must make allowances for her background, you understand – she's a foundling from the orphanage. Never knew her parents. We took her in to be company for Pet, and being practical people, we've tried to make up for her natural deficiencies as best we can."

"And you call her Tattycoram?" asked the Doctor, quizzically raising one eyebrow. "Is that her real name?"

"No more than 'Doctor' is yours, I'm sure," Mr. Doyce teased.

Mr. Meagles began a lengthy explanation of the history of Tattycoram's nickname, which Martha only half listened to. The words _"allowances for her background"_ and _"natural deficiencies"_ echoed in her mind with painful clarity. It reminded her of Joan Redfern – kind, well-educated Joan Redfern – instantly dismissing the notion of a female doctor, _"especially one of your color"._ John Smith, with the Doctor's own heart and mind underneath his 1913 mindset, brushing off her frantic attempts to warn him about the Family of Blood with _"This is called a STO-RY, Martha!_"_._ She felt dizzy suddenly, as if the corset were cutting off her air.

"May I be excused?" she blurted out. "I need to, er … fix my hair."

That one unruly strand of hair really was falling over her forehead, but it was the last thing on her mind as the Doctor, Doyce and the Meagles casually waved her away. She needed space, silence, time to remind herself of who she really was: Martha Jones, medical student, daughter of a lawyer and a history professor, resident of 21st century London. These people's judgements had no power over her.

"If you feel uneasy, Miss Jones, perhaps you'd better count to five-and-twenty!" Mr. Meagles called after her, chuckling.

"Thanks, but no thanks, Mr. Meagles," she retorted over her shoulder, putting on a smile. "I have my own methods."

She recited Latin bone names in her mind as she entered the house, closed the door, and leaned back against it in the tired, boneless way she had developed at Farringham. The corridor was cool and dark after the sunshine; she closed her eyes and took several cautious breaths.

"Whoever you are," said a tear-choked voice. "Go away."

Martha jumped and opened her eyes. Behind a table with a vase of flowers on it was Tattycoram, curled into a ball with her head on her knees.

"I'm sorry," said Martha, backing into the nearest door. "I didn't mean to disturb you – "

"Wait." The maid raised her head abruptly to look Martha up and down, evidently fascinated. "It's you … are you following me?"

"No." Cautiously, so as not to damage her voluminous skirts, Martha slid down the wall to sit down opposite Tattycoram. "I just came in here to get some peace and quiet."

A sneer tugged at the corner of the other girl's mouth. "To get away from the _practical_ people."

"Exactly."

"Is your master anything like that?" asked Tattycoram.

Martha flushed to the roots of her hair. "He's _not_ my master, all right? He's just a friend." Albeit a friend who drove the TARDIS, used the screwdriver and made most of the decisions.

"They always say that," Tattycoram muttered, her eyebrows drawing together. "The Meagles say it too. Such good friends, so kind, so charitable to a poor Negro girl. Tell me you don't know what I mean."

She did know. Even in 2007 at the Royal Hope Hospital, she had once been mistaken for a janitor instead of a student without her lab coat. In bookstores and cinemas, she had to search very carefully for well-written, realistic stories about people (especially women) of color. In 1913, it had been worse – "_cultural differences_", indeed. In 1826 … well, the sooner she got out of here, the better.

"I know," said Martha.

"It's not the work I mind," Tattycoram continued, rocking back and forth. "It was much harder at the orphanage. I'm lucky, really I am, with fine clothes and a lovely house and the kindest masters a girl like me could wish for … but they make me want to _scream_ sometimes! It's my horrid nickname, and the horrid counting – as if counting to five-and-twenty could solve anything – and seeing Miss Pet pampered like a little hothouse flower while I, her sister according to the law, earn my living as her unpaid servant. I hate them – no, I don't mean that, I'm just a wicked, thankless creature … but it's not an easy life all the same, is it, Miss Jones?"

_It's still easier for me than for you, _thought Martha sadly, watching the tears run down Tattycoram's brown cheeks. They were almost the same shade as hers; even their voices were similar. Still, Tattycoram had next to no chances of becoming anything but a maid, while Martha could escape this stifling century anytime she wanted and go back to earn her medical degree. What a difference a birthday made.

"It's just Martha," she said. "And you … what's your name?"

"Harriet Beadle. An orphanage name, but it's all I have."

"Harriet … listen. You're not wicked, okay? Don't ever think that. You're just trying to keep your dignity in an impossible situation. I've been there, trust me … and trust me when I tell you that getting angry doesn't help."

She had slapped John Smith once, in a last-ditch attempt to break through that white male superiority and force him to pay attention. He had shouted at her and hauled her out of his room.

"Then what am I to do?" asked Harriet, throwing up her hands. "I've told them, again and again, and all they ever do is pity my bad temper and tell me to count to five-and-twenty. How can I make them _listen_ to me?"

"That … I don't know," Martha admitted. "You can't make people listen unless they want to. Is there anyone else you could go to? A shelter, some relatives?" Even as she asked, she knew how unlikely it would be.

"A lady once offered me a place to stay … I hardly know her, but she knows me awfully well. She said she was like me, even though she's white, and that I mustn't be afraid. But I _am_ afraid of her, Miss Jones – Martha. She comes and goes like a spirit. She makes me feel worse … more bitter, more hateful … than I do already. She is not like you."

Martha shrugged off the implied compliment, thinking hard. An idea had hit her – a mad, impulsive idea sadly liable to go wrong, but the only one so far. It all depended on the Doctor. If he agreed, she could give this troubled sister a glimpse into a better time, and that might – just might – help her a little in coping with this one.

She got to her feet and held out a hand to Harriet. "I'd like to show you something," she said. "Something beautiful. Are you coming?"

Harriet took a firm grip on Martha's hand, pulled herself up and smoothed her dress with a determined air.

"Show me."

-DW-

"Lord have mercy!" Harriet exclaimed, her black eyes blazing with terror and excitement as she clung to a column inside the zig-zagging TARDIS. "You might have warned me, Doctor!"

"I did say to brace yourself," said the Doctor, careening past her with a mad, boyish grin.

"What sorcery is this?"

"It's just science," Martha corrected, enjoying her fellow passenger's astonishment. "But don't ask him to explain, he'll talk your ear off. So, Doctor, where and when are we going? Anything we can do to help?"

"No, no, I've got it – whoops! – I've got it all under control," said the Doctor, typing on two keyboards simultaneously and trying not to lose his balance. "Next stop: New New York. It doesn't get much more diverse than that – well, unless you want a war zone, which I don't think you folks would appreciate."

"_Not_ the Motorway, Doctor," Martha warned, adding as an aside to Harriet: "Last time we went there, the air pollution was so thick you could cut it."

"I _was_ born in the middle of London," she shrugged. "Filthy air is commonplace to me."

The two women sighed with relief as the TARDIS bumped, shuddered and wheezed to a stop on some solid surface. The Doctor patted the console with an affectionate smile, as Harriet had often seen people pat their horses.

"Good girl," he murmured. "Now … Harriet Beadle, as our newest passenger, why don't you open the doors and find out where we are?"

He was brimming with excitement, like a father waiting for his children to unpack their birthday gifts. Harriet reached for the doors with shaking hands, pushed them open … and stared.

The Meagles' garden had disappeared. The blue box was standing in a meadow, overlooking a wide, clear river on whose other side lay the strangest city Harriet had ever seen. There were tall buildings made of steel, gleaming like silver in the sun, a swarm of flying machines above them, and not a single smokestack in view. It was beautiful.

"Welcome," said the Doctor, spreading his arms, "To the year of our Lord five billion and fifty-eight!"

"We might want to find some different clothes," Martha pointed out, smoothing her Victorian gown with a grimace. "Not that the locals will mind, they're used to anything, but I mind. Ever wondered what it's like wearing trousers?"

Her new friend's ear-to-ear grin was answer enough.

As they headed back to Martha's room inside the TARDIS so Harriet could raid her closet, Martha's eye was caught by a paperback book on her nightstand she could have sworn had not been there before. She shook her head and smiled. _Just when I forget the TARDIS is alive, she does something like this. How sweet of her – if only I had time to read …_

The cover, however, made her jaw drop. The illustration showed two cappucino-colored, black-eyed girls in Victorian gowns (one light pink, one Martha's favorite burgundy) standing in the doorway of a blue wooden box with a futuristic, silver city in the background. It was titled _Impossible Journeys, by Harold Bennett._

Martha blinked, shook her head, and smiled in wry acceptance of what the Doctor would call the "timey-wimeyness" of the situation. _Impossible Journeys _and its many sequels had been childhood favorites of hers: that Jules Verne-like spirit of adventure; the spunky twin sisters, Hatty and Mabel, and their eccentric tutor Professor Theta; and later on, the mystery surrounding the novel's author, whose identity was unsolved to this day.

_So Harold Bennett is Harriet Beadle. A thousand academics just punched the air,_ thought Martha in amusement, hiding the book under her pillow to prevent a paradox just as Harriet herself emerged from the walk-in closet. In jeans, sneakers and a denim jacket, her frizzy African hair escaping from its ties in a dozen places, she really could have been Martha's twin – maybe even her grandmother, many times removed.

"I know," said Harriet, ruefully tugging on a stray curl. "My hair's the very devil to keep tidy. I wish I had yours."

"You look brilliant," Martha replied, taking her arm. "Let's go."


End file.
